(AGENPARL) – lun 11 settembre 2023 September 11, 2023 
CONTRACT RELEASE C23-026
*NASA Selects Ball Aerospace to Develop NOAA’s GeoXO Sounder Instrument*
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*/Credits: NASA/*
NASA, on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), selected Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation of Boulder, to
develop the sounder instrument for a Geostationary Extended Observations
(GeoXO) satellite program.
This cost-plus-award-fee contract is valued at approximately $486.9 million.
It includes the build, delivery, spacecraft integration, and post-delivery
support for one flight instrument, as well as options for additional units.
The anticipated period of performance for this contract includes support for
10 years of on-orbit operations and five years of on-orbit storage, for a
total of 15 years for each flight instrument. The work will be completed at
Ball Aerospace’s facility in Boulder, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The GeoXO Sounder (GXS) is a hyperspectral infrared instrument, a camera-like
device that has many “channels” to detect wavelengths of infrared light.
GXS will provide real-time information about the vertical distribution of
atmospheric moisture, temperature, and winds over the Western Hemisphere. The
National Weather Service will use GXS data to improve weather prediction and
short-term forecasts of convection and severe weather. The National Hurricane
Center will use GXS data to improve hurricane track and intensity forecasts.
The contract scope includes tasks and deliverables necessary to design,
analyze, develop, fabricate, integrate, calibrate, test, verify, evaluate,
support launch, supply and maintain the instrument ground support equipment,
and support mission operations at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility in
Suitland, Maryland.
The GeoXO satellite system will advance Earth observations from geostationary
orbit. The mission will supply vital information to address major
environmental challenges of the future in support of weather, ocean, and
climate operations in the United States. GeoXO’s advanced capabilities will
help address our changing planet and the evolving needs of NOAA’s data
users. NOAA and NASA are working to ensure these critical observations are in
place by the early 2030s when the GOES-R series nears the end of its
operational lifetime.
Together, NOAA and NASA will oversee the development, launch, testing, and
operation of all the satellites in the GeoXO program. NOAA funds and manages
the program, operations, and data products. NASA and commercial partners
develop and build the instruments and spacecraft and launch the satellites.
For more information on the GeoXO program, visit:
-end-
*Press Contacts*
Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
Jeremy Eggers
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
757-824-2958
John Leslie
NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
202-527-3504
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